爱上海

The Chinese stock market rallied on Tuesday after hitting the three-year low, boosted by a State Council meeting vowing to take "stronger, more effective measures" to stabilize the capital market and improve market confidence.

Analysts are generally positive about the prospect of China's stock market, which has become one of the most attractive markets globally in terms of valuation of shares.

The Shanghai Component Index closed up 0.59 percent to 2,770.98 on Tuesday, the Shenzhen Composite Index rose by 1.38 percent to 8,596.28. The tech-heavy ChiNext index went up by 1.24 percent to 1,687.61.

Stocks of many Shanghai State-owned enterprises staged a stellar performance, with companies including Shanghai Phoenix Enterprise (Group) Co, Shanghai Material Trading Co, Capital Securities Co and China Television Media rising by the daily limit.

A meeting of the State Council, the cabinet, held on Monday pledged "stronger, more effective measures" to stabilize the market and improve market confidence.

Efforts will be made to enhance the innovation and coordination of policy tools, consolidate and strengthen the trend of economic recovery, and promote the stable and healthy development of the capital market, according to meeting notes.

According to a report by Bloomberg Tuesday, relevant Chinese authorities are seeking to mobilize about 2 trillion yuan ($278 billion), mainly coming from offshore accounts of state-owned enterprises, as part of a stabilization fund to buy shares onshore through the Hong Kong exchange link.

In Hong Kong market, the Hang Seng Index rose by 3.26 percent to 15,448.54 points as of 2:30 pm Tuesday, regaining the psychological threshold of 15,000.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government is closely following Hong Kong equity market fluctuations, and considers the market still operating in an orderly fashion without abnormal phenomenon, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said on Tuesday.

As an international financial hub, Hong Kong SAR remains competitive and attractive. Hong Kong enjoys free capital flows, highly transparent operations and sound supervision system, according to Lee. He said the equity market fluctuations are mainly due to market factors, calling for investors to make decisions by closely following market changes.

The Chinese stock market has become one of the most attractive markets across the world in terms of share valuation. The valuation of A-shares is about half that of US market stocks, Zhu Liang, chief investment officer of AllianceBernstein's office in China, said in a note sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

China is the world's largest foreign trade country and its capital market is a venue that could provide good yields. Currently, investors across the globe are quietly paying attention to A-share market, Zhu said, noting that they are "waiting for wind." In 2024, listed Chinese companies are expected to maintain a good profit growth, with the growth rate of earnings per share (EPS) expected to be around 17 percent, Zhu said.

People's Bank of China says it will cut commercial lenders' reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage points on February 5

Chinese stocks soar on Thursday, with Shanghai composite index up 3.03%, or 85.34 points higher

The surveyed urban unemployment rate on average in China stood at 5.2 percent in 2023, down 0.4 percentage points year-on-year, official data showed on Wednesday. An official said that the employment situation will remain stable in 2024 thanks to the economic recovery, accelerated industrial upgrading and other positive factors.

In December, the rate in urban areas was 5.1 percent, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). On Wednesday, the NBS also resumed the release of data on youth unemployment after a four-month suspension.

The surveyed unemployment rate of the population aged 16 to 24 (excluding students) was 14.9 percent in December.

"In 2023, we managed to keep employment stable, with an overall improvement," Kang Yi, head of the NBS, told a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

Kang said that 11.8 million urban jobs were added in the first 11 months of last year, up 350,000 year-on-year. Thanks to policies to stabilize employment and expand hiring, the employment of key groups and groups in difficulty was effectively ensured. 

As of the end of November, 32.94 million people had been lifted out of poverty through employment, exceeding the target of 30 million, he said.

The improved employment situation underscored the economic recovery in 2023, as well as the implementation of pro-employment policies. That was especially true of those supporting private enterprises, which create about 80 percent of the country's jobs, Li Chang'an, a professor at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies of the University of International Business and Economics, told Global Times on Wednesday.

A report Chinese job-hunting platform Zhilian Zhaopin sent to the Global Times showed that wages offered to new hires in the fourth quarter rose from the third quarter.

Salaries in such sectors as new-energy vehicles (NEVs) and consumer services rose quickly, driven by booming sales and the consumption rebound.

China still faces employment pressure, with structural problems involving some groups and industries. "However, our employment situation is expected to remain stable thanks to the economic recovery, our accelerated industrial upgrading and other positive factors," Kang said. 

Kang said that China's incremental economic growth this year will likely outpace that of last year, providing strong support for expanding employment. Also, the number of people leaving the labor force this year will outnumber those who are entering, providing more opportunities for job-seekers.

"The growth of the consumption sector will continue to be a major force creating jobs this year," Kang said, and policies to stabilize employment will also continue to produce effects.

Li called for more efforts to strengthen vocational training, optimize recruitment services and ensure the stable employment of key groups. "More policies should be announced to support sectors that could create more jobs for young people - for example, rural revitalization, Chinese companies 'going global' and digital transformation," Li said.

A Shenzhen-based fresh graduate named Wang Xinyun told the Global Times on Wednesday that there are still many opportunities in sectors that quickly recovered from the pandemic, and young people should find a job first and then continue to improve their competitiveness.

Wang works at a tourism agency in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, and said she hopes to ride on the wave of booming tourism to carve out a niche in the field.

The Red Sea, once a bustling waterway that attracted a large number of cargo ships from around the world, is now in turmoil. Amid all the intricacy and complexity, China has raised a fair voice.

In the Egyptian capital of Cairo on Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed grave concern over the escalating tensions in the Red Sea. He called for an end to the harassment of civilian vessels in the Red Sea, while noting that the UN Security Council has never authorized any country to use force against Yemen. Wang called for refraining from taking any actions that will "add fuel to the fire" in the Red Sea and raise the overall security risks in the region.

China's fairness lies in not taking sides or showing bias. This is in stark contrast to how Western countries touch upon on the Gaza war, in which they tend to overwhelmingly blame Hamas without mentioning the reasons behind Hamas' attacks. China, on the other hand, does not support the Houthis' use of violence to disrupt the trade route in the Red Sea, but it also disagrees with the US-led biased approach and double standards in the hostilities between Israel and Palestine, as well as the use of violence to counter violence.

Wang said the UN Security Council has never authorized any country to use force against Yemen. To be straightforward, the Western alliance's attack in the region is unauthorized and illegal. 

Houthis'attacks in the Red Sea is a protest against Israel's actions in the Gaza war, which actually has caused widespread opposition from the international community, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times. 

When the Houthis vowed to attack ships in the Red Sea that are linked to Israel, how did the US respond to that? Escalation. The US first launched a multinational coalition against the Yemeni militants. After seeing the effectiveness of the operation was unsatisfactory, the US and UK militaries launched strikes against Houthi targets in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The missions failed to stop Houthis from attacking shipping, and now Houthis are targeting US ships. A Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile struck a US-owned and operated cargo ship on Monday. What's the point of that escalation?

This retaliation and counter-retaliation are snowballing in the Red Sea. It is now evident that the US and the UK have underestimated the military capabilities of the Houthi militants. Experts believe that the US will find it difficult to contain the Houthis, and that the Red Sea crisis won't be resolved any time soon. 

Against this backdrop, media outlets from various countries have noticed an interesting phenomenon: Maritime ships are signaling their Chinese identity in the Red Sea to avoid being targeted by the Houthis.

This is a reflection of China's soft power. "The Houthi militants have no interest in attacking Chinese ships. The reason is simple - China makes fair remarks and takes fair actions concerning Middle East affairs. China does not have any special interests in the region and cares only about regional peace, security, and stability," Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times.

China has played a constructive role in fostering peace in the Middle East. The Chinese-mediated detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia has driven a "wave of reconciliation" in the Middle East. The Arab League decided to re-admit Syria after shunning it for 12 years. Turkey and Egypt realized full normalization of relations, ending nearly a decade of diplomatic hostility.

After the Gaza conflict broke out, Special Envoy of the Chinese Government on the Middle East Issue Zhai Jun visited a number of Middle East countries calling for ceasefire and creation of conditions for the resumption of the peace process. China has also joined in the co-sponsorship of the draft UN Security Council resolution aimed at removing bottlenecks to humanitarian access and alleviating the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. 

In contrast, US' comprehensive and overt support for Israel has directly led to the prolongation and escalation of the war. It is also due to the obstruction by the US that the UN Security Council has repeatedly postponed the draft resolution aimed at bringing in some form of ceasefire. The biggest difference between China and the US in Middle East affairs is that China is a responsible major power, and its responsible actions have been recognized by all parties, Shen said.

As Wang mentioned in Egypt, the priority now is to stop the conflict as soon as possible to prevent it from further escalation or even getting out of control.

If Washington and London genuinely want an end of the crisis in the Red Sea, the only way out is to end the Gaza crisis, withdraw what should be withdrawn, end wrong support, and apply pressure where it's needed. 

China and the US resumed the previously suspended defense policy coordination talks with a meeting this week, in which the Chinese side stressed its positions on the Taiwan question and the South China Sea issue, as well as maritime and air security issues.

Although differences remain and cannot be resolved anytime soon, such talks can lower the risks of misjudgments which will prevent escalating accidents into conflicts, experts said on Wednesday. 

The 17th China-US Defense Policy Coordination Talks was held in Washington from Monday to Tuesday, China's Ministry of National Defense (MOD) said in a press release on Wednesday.

It marks the first meeting of the Defense Policy Coordination Talks since the annual talks were suspended after then-US house speaker Nancy Pelosi provocatively visited the island of Taiwan in August 2022, observers said.

The Chinese side said that China is ready to develop healthy and stable military ties with the US side on the basis of equality and respect, and work together to implement the important consensus related to military affairs reached by the two heads of state during their meeting in San Francisco in 2023, the MOD press release reads.

Zhuo Hua, an international affairs expert at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the latest meeting is a reflection of smooth progress in China and the US' gradual resumption of military exchanges.

The defense policy coordination talks came after senior officials of the two militaries' joint staff departments had a virtual meeting in December 2023. It is an indication that other military communication channels, including Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings, telephone conversations between theater commanders and meetings between defense ministers could also resume soon, marking the complete resumption of the two militaries' exchanges at all levels, Zhuo said.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Wednesday that direct communication between the two countries' militaries are conducive to preventing misjudgments, which could cause unpredictable conflicts and frictions that bring tremendous harm not only to the two countries, but also to peace and stability in the region.

As long as the US aims to maintain its global hegemony, it is unrealistic to expect the US to make fundamental changes, and China needs to maintain high vigilance in safeguarding its own national security, Song said.

This means it is vital that the two militaries manage differences and defuse crises should they arise, Song said.

In the meeting, the Chinese side urged the US side to take seriously China's concerns and take more actions that are conducive to the development of the two countries' military relations, according to the MOD press release.

The Chinese side stressed that China will not make any concessions or compromises on the Taiwan question, and demanded that the US side abide by the one-China principle, implement relevant commitments, stop arming the island of Taiwan, and not support "Taiwan independence."

The Chinese side urged the US side to reduce military deployments and provocations in the South China Sea, and stop supporting infringing, provocative actions by a certain country. 

The US side should fully recognize the root cause of maritime and air security issues, strictly discipline its frontline troops, and stop sensationalizing and hyping relevant issues, the Chinese side said.

The Chinese side also elaborated China's stern positions and major concerns on issues concerning China's core interests and international hotspot issues.

According to a readout on the talks published by the US Department of Defense, the US side highlighted the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication "in order to prevent competition from veering into conflict."

While the US side reiterated the US' commitment to its one-China policy and reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, it also claimed that the US will "continue to fly, sail, and operate safely and responsibly wherever international law allows," and accused China of repeatedly harassing Philippine vessels in the South China Sea.

Analysts said that China repeatedly made its core interests and red lines clear in communicating with the US, and the US will have to understand that if it insists on making provocations in those aspects, China will have to take resolute measures to resolve the questions.

A Beijing-based military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Wednesday that the remarks from the Chinese side and the US side show that there are still many differences, which is normal given that the military serves politics, and as long as the US is determined to strategically contain China, military exchanges between the two countries will only have limited effects. This is to avoid misunderstanding and misjudgment as much as possible, and prevent potential accidents and their escalation into conflicts, analysts said.

China-US military relations still face uncertainties, and there might be frictions from time to time, but the two major countries must shoulder their responsibilities in managing differences to safeguard peace and stability, the expert said.

To help self-driving cars drive safely, scientists are looking to an unlikely place: the sea.

A new type of camera inspired by the eyes of mantis shrimps could help autonomous vehicles better gauge their surroundings, researchers report October 11 in Optica. The camera — which detects polarized light, or light waves vibrating on a single plane — has roughly half a million sensors that each capture a wide range of light and dark spots within a single frame, somewhat similar to how mantis shrimps see the world.
The researchers wanted to “mimic the animals’ ability to detect a wide range of light intensities,” says coauthor Viktor Gruev, a bioengineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The crustaceans’ visual system allows them to see both light and dark areas while moving in and out of dark crevices in shallow waters, he says.

The newly devised camera can take in a wider range of light intensities, measured in decibels, than other digital or polarization cameras. Previously, the best polarization cameras operated with a dynamic range of about 60 decibels; the new one works within a 140 decibel range, resulting in a clearer mapping of objects in the same frame.

Depending on the maker, autonomous vehicles currently use a mixture of methods to map the world around them, including lidar (light detection and ranging equipment), cameras and GPS. But the cameras currently guiding autonomous vehicles aren’t good at handling sharp lighting transitions and have trouble detecting features in foggy weather (SN: 12/24/16, p. 34). Because the new cameras are small and use many of the same parts as common digital cameras, Gruev says they could cost as little as $10.

From 2007 to 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration flagged nearly 800 over-the-counter dietary supplements as tainted with potentially harmful pharmaceutical drugs, a study shows. Fewer than half of those products were recalled by their makers, scientists found.

Researchers analyzed the FDA’s public database of tainted supplements, identifying both the type of contaminating ingredients they contained and how the products were marketed. Most of these supplements, which are allowed to contain only dietary ingredients, included drugs such as steroids, the active ingredient in Viagra and a weight loss drug banned from the U.S. market eight years ago. The products had been marketed primarily for sexual enhancement, weight loss or muscle building, scientists report online October 12 in JAMA Network Open.

More than half of American adults have reported taking dietary supplements, such as vitamins, minerals and other specialty products. More than 85,000 supplements are estimated to be available in the United States, and the FDA says it cannot test all of them.
No No’s
These pharmaceutical ingredients are not permitted in dietary supplements, but were found to be contaminating supplements.

Sildenafil
What it is: A medication that dilates blood vessels in the penis, and is the active ingredient in Viagra
Health issue: Can lower blood pressure to levels that are unsafe for people taking medications for diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol
Supplement type: Sexual enhancement
Sibutramine
What it is: An appetite suppressant removed from the U.S. market in 2010
Health issue: Increased risk of heart attack or stroke
Supplement type: Weight loss
Phenolphthalein
What it is: A laxative removed from the U.S. market in 1999
Health issue: Potential carcinogen
Supplement type: Weight loss
Anabolic steroids
What they are: Chemicals related to the male sex hormone testosterone
Health issue: Associated with liver injury, kidney damage, heart attack and stroke
Supplement type: Muscle building
Aromatase inhibitors
What they are: A class of drugs that lower estrogen levels, and are used to treat breast cancer
Health issue: Associated with decreased bone growth, infertility, liver dysfunction
Supplement type: Muscle building
These supplements aren’t subject to the same regulations, testing and approval process that are required for pharmaceutical drugs. But if the FDA identifies tainted supplements after they’re on the market, the agency can issue public warnings or suggest the company voluntarily remove the product.

Whether that approach is effective raises questions, though, says general internist Pieter Cohen of Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Mass., who was not involved in the new work. Voluntary recalls don’t necessarily mean a product is completely removed from shelves or that consumers become aware and stop using a product, Cohen’s research has found.

And only 360 of the 776 supplements flagged as tainted from 2007 to 2016 were recalled, the study found. “What really jumped out at me,” Cohen says, is that “when the FDA detects drugs in supplements, more than half the time the product isn’t even recalled.”

Supplement use does carry health risks. A 2015 study estimated that 23,000 emergency room visits each year are due to health problems related to dietary supplements. Of those, about 2,100 patients are hospitalized annually, commonly for symptoms related to heart trouble.
In 2013, 20 percent of drug-induced liver injury cases recorded in the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network registry were caused by dietary supplements. That’s up from 7 percent in 2004. Liver damage can be fatal or require a liver transplant. A 2013 report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on 29 cases of liver injury found that 24 of those patients reported using a dietary supplement for weight loss.

“The law allows companies to advertise supplements as if they’re good for your health, even if there’s no evidence in humans that that’s the case,” Cohen says. He began studying dietary supplements after noting that his patients developed health problems, including panic attacks, chest pain and kidney failure, related to weight-loss supplements. One patient was suspended from his job when his urine tested positive for amphetamine; a chemical derivative of the drug was found in the weight-loss pills that he was taking.

Cohen’s recommendation? Avoid supplements “that promise you anything.”

Animated characters can learn from online tutorials, too.

A new computer program teaches virtual avatars new skills, such as dances, acrobatic stunts and martial art moves, from YouTube videos. This kind of system, described in the November ACM Transactions on Graphics, could render more physically coordinated characters for movies and video games, or serve as a virtual training ground for robots.

“I was really impressed” by the program, says Daniel Holden, a machine-learning researcher at Ubisoft La Forge in Montreal not involved in the work. Rendering accurate, natural-looking movements based on everyday video clips “has always been a goal for researchers in this field.”
Animated characters typically have learned full-body motions by studying motion capture data, collected by a camera that tracks special markers attached to actors’ bodies. But this technique requires special equipment and often works only indoors.

The new program leverages a type of computer code known as an artificial neural network, which roughly mimics how the human brain processes information. Trained on about 100,000 images of people in various poses, the program first estimates an actor’s pose in each frame of a video clip. Then, it teaches a virtual avatar to re-create the actor’s motion using reinforcement learning, giving the character a virtual “reward” when it matches the video actor’s pose in a frame.

Computer scientist Jason Peng and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, fed YouTube videos into the system to teach characters to do somersaults, backflips, vaulting and other stunts.
Even characters such as animated Atlas robots with bodies drastically different from those of their human video teachers mastered these motions (SN: 12/13/14, p. 16). Characters could also perform under conditions not seen in the training video, like cartwheeling while being pelted with blocks or moving across terrain riddled with holes.
The work, also reported October 8 at arXiv.org, is a step “toward making motion capture easier, cheaper and more accessible,” Holden says. Videos could be used to render virtual versions of outdoor activities, since motion capture is difficult to do outdoors, or to create lifelike avatars of large animals that would be difficult to stick with motion capture markers.

This kind of program may also someday be used to teach robots new skills, Peng says. An animated version of a robot could master skills in a virtual environment before that learned computer code powered a machine in the physical world.

These animated characters still struggle with nimble dance steps, such as the “Gangnam Style” jig, and learn from short clips featuring only a single person. David Jacobs, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park not involved in the work, looks forward to future virtual avatars that can reenact longer, more complex actions, such as pairs of people dancing or soccer teams playing a game.

“That’s probably a much harder problem, because [each] person’s not as clearly visible, but it would be really cool,” Jacobs says. “This is only the beginning.”

The cause of a rare polio-like disease continues to elude public health officials even as the number of U.S. cases grows.

Confirmed cases of acute flaccid myelitis cases have risen to 90 in 27 states, out of a possible 252 under investigation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced November 13. That’s up from 62 confirmed cases out of 127 suspected just a month ago (SN Online: 10/16/18). There were a record 149 cases in 2016.
“I understand parents want answers,” Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in Atlanta, said at a news conference. The agency continues to investigate the disease, which causes weakness in one or more limbs and primarily affects children. But “right now the science doesn’t give us an answer,” she said.

A deep dive into 80 of the confirmed cases offered some details about the course of AFM. In most, fever or respiratory symptoms like coughing and congestion, or both, preceded limb weakness by three to 10 days. Most cases involved weakness in an upper limb, researchers report online November 13 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Only two samples of cerebrospinal fluid — the clear fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord — tested positive for a pathogen, each for a different enterovirus. Since 2014, when the first big outbreak of AFM occurred, most AFM spinal fluid samples haven’t produced a culprit, Messonnier said. The body may clear the pathogen or it hides in tissues, she said, or the body’s own immune response to a pathogen may lead to spinal cord damage.

“This time of year, many children have fever and respiratory symptoms [and] most of them do not go on to develop AFM,” Messonnier said. “We’re trying to figure out what the triggers are that would cause someone to develop AFM later.”